On the Tide
by Ness Frost
Summary: When Pakku goes south to help his sister tribe rebuild, he thinks that he's getting a second chance. Kanna thinks he's deluding himself.


**Notes:** This was written for the _Ripples_ contest winner Kimberly_T, who managed to correctly guess the inspiration behind the story (it was _Dark Passion Play_ by Nightwish), and thus won a oneshot! The request was for Pakku and Kanna's second courtship, with a few more specifics that I won't get into here. Hope you enjoy!

 **Warning:** Brief, non-graphic references to relationship abuse (not between Pakku and Kanna).

* * *

It was her dearest dream—turned into her oldest nightmare.

When Kanna had first seen the sails approaching their village over the horizon, she had been the first to walk to the edge of the ice to meet them. (There was a time when she might have run, but she was far too old for that now.) They'd had no word yet as to the end of the war, but that didn't have to mean anything—they were isolated down here at the South Pole, and news traveled slowly. Even if it had been a long time since she'd last allowed herself to dream, if there was anyone who could restore hope to her again, it was her grandchildren and the boy they'd left with. So Kanna made sure that she was there to welcome them home—only to freeze in place when the flags flying next to the sails became clear.

These were not Southern Water Tribe ships.

For several years after she'd first settled in, Kanna had woken in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and had had to get up and walk to the door to peer outside, because she wouldn't be able to sleep again until she'd made sure that the Northern Tribe sails she'd seen on the horizon were indeed nothing more than a dream. "Stop worrying," Hama had mumbled around a mouthful of sleep one time when Kanna had been careless and woken her, and she'd been forced to explain to her friend the reason she'd been tiptoeing around in the middle of the night in nothing but her socks and a polar leopard pelt. "If any of them try to take you back, I'll sink their ships before they know what hit them."

When she'd said it, Kanna had been grateful for the thought. Still, Hama was only one waterbender, and she hadn't seen what the men of the Northern Tribe could accomplish when they worked together. So the nightmares had continued, right up until the day Hama had been captured and Kanna had watched with tears in her eyes as they'd dragged her away.

 _All this time I've been thinking of nothing but myself, and she was the one in danger_ , Kanna had thought after the cleanup, still raw with loss and completely disgusted with herself, as she'd helped Hama's parents sort through her belongings to arrange which should be given to the needy of the tribe and which they simply couldn't bear to part with. _Maybe if Hama hadn't been defending_ _me_ _, she'd have stood more of a chance. Well, no more. Our last waterbender is gone, and I can't keep hiding behind the warriors either. From now on, I have to look out for myself—like I told myself I would when I left._

 _Use your head, Kanna_ , she'd repeated to herself many years later, whenever she'd felt the old fear creeping up on her once more. _The Northern Water Tribe isn't going to send the whole fleet halfway around the world to bring back one woman—not in the middle of a war. Besides, you're not a sixteen-year-old girl under her father's thumb anymore. You're a member of this tribe now, and a married woman besides._ Married by her own choice, to a man she loved—the thought made her flush with pride. _Even supposing they do come, they can't force you to do anything. Besides, if they were going to come, they'd have been here a long time ago. It's time to put aside your childish fears and focus on what matters._

So it was that when the ships pulled in, Kanna stood her ground. She remained immovable as the ships dropped anchor, as men scrambled over their sides and onto the ice, as ramps were lowered to allow the women (all of them, she noted, in healers' garb) to disembark as well.

Then, she saw him.

His hair had gone gray since the last time she'd seen him, his face had acquired new wrinkles, and Kanna saw to her gratification that his hairline had begun to retreat back up his forehead as well. Even after all these years, though, that arrogant expression of self-satisfaction was unmistakable, as was the wolf tail he'd always been so proud of (and which she'd tried and failed to prevent her grandson from emulating).

Pakku.

He had yet to look her way—he was still busy on the ships, directing the male waterbenders in the docking process so that the healers could disembark. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for some of the younger Northerners—as she watched one of the boys ( _not_ men yet, not by her standards) elbowed his friend, and a whole group of them turned to look at her and at the other women who had now gathered around her, arrogant grins spreading over their faces at the sight of Kanna and her adopted people.

The apparent leader of the knot of young men said something to the rest, and then they were sauntering up, still smiling in the way that told her they thought they were some sort of benevolent saviors (yet where had they been during the years and years of Fire Nation raids?). "Excuse me, ma'am," but his show of respect was just that: a show. "We need to speak to whoever's in charge."

"Kanna is," one of the other women helpfully volunteered.

When they still looked confused, she folded her hands into her sleeves. "That would be me."

There was some confused muttering among the boys before her. Every adult in the village (what little was left of it, anyway) had come out to join her by now, and the occupants of the ships had also finished disembarking and were standing in a group in front of them; she saw Pakku start at the sound of her name. Her group, Kanna noted with increasing irritation, was outnumbered at least two to one.

The boys who'd first approached her were still grinning, though the expressions now seemed to be frozen onto their faces. "I'm sorry," the leader began again after taking a few seconds to regain his equilibrium. "But I believe there's been a mistake. You see, we came here intending to meet with the chief." He paused, took a moment to decide how stupid he thought she was, and decided that condescension would be the best way to go. "We would like you to take us to the _man_ in charge."

 _Whippersnappers_ , she thought with disgust. _Clearly no one's bothered to teach them any manners._ Out loud she said, "Yes, you have made a mistake. Chief Hakoda is away at war, as are his son and all of the men on our tribal councils. As the eldest living member of the Tribe, that puts me in charge. If you want to talk to someone, you can talk to me.

Their confusion was quickly giving way to anger. "This is preposterous!" the boy blustered, while his friends and most of the men behind them all muttered agreement. "I demand to speak to a man!"

If Kanna hadn't had a headache before, she certainly did now. "Very well." She turned to one of the women behind her. "Naja." The younger woman stepped forward, prematurely gray braids trailing down her shoulders. "Please go and get Yutu."

"Yutu?" Naja looked startled. "But he's—"

"Clearly we have not been giving our guests the respect they deserve. As nothing less than a man will satisfy them, it is our duty to present them with one."

"Oh!" Naja's eyes widened as she caught on. "Yes, of course. I'll bring him right out." Turning, she ran back to the tents.

A few minutes of awkward silence followed (or at least, it was awkward on the men's part) while the two groups stared at each other, each of them either unable or unwilling to initiate a conversation. At long last, however, Naja emerged, towing her five-year-old son by the hand.

"Here's an ambassador who is closer to your level. This is Yutu, the eldest male member of the Tribe who is currently available. Yutu, kindly explain to these gentlemen how we do things in the Southern Water Tribe. We will not insult you further with our presence." With one final bow, Kanna turned and left; taking their cue from her, the other women followed.

She must have been imagining the slight smirk of approval that had crossed Pakku's face.

* * *

"Why did you come here, Pakku?"

She could sense his surprise in the brief jerk of his body, but Kanna didn't turn around to look, nor did she explain how she had known that it was him. The other women of the Southern Tribe knew better than to enter her home unannounced, and the boys from the North still did not quite dare. There was no reason that Pakku had to know any of that, though. Let him keep on his toes—like she'd spent the latter half of _her_ teenage years tiptoeing around, terrified of what the slightest wrong word or slip-up might cost her.

"As we were about to explain, before you decided that your pride was more important than the welfare of your tribe—"

"You mean, before an arrogant teenager decided that we didn't deserve to be treated like human beings—"

"Kanna, we came here to help!" he exploded at last. "We heard that your tribe was in trouble, so we brought our best waterbenders to help you rebuild."

"And where were you when our tribe was being ripped apart in the first place?"

He only stared, and she turned away in disgust.

"We had our own problems—"

"How many of your people died? My grandchildren lost their mother. I spent years terrified that my granddaughter would go the same way, because she was born a waterbender. So tell me, Pakku: how many grandchildren did you lose?"

His answer was clear in his silence. After a few moments passed and it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything, Kanna cleared her throat. "Why did you come here?"

"I told you, to help you rebuild."

"That's not what I asked." Kanna shook her head. "Why did _you_ come here, Pakku?"

"You asked how many grandchildren I had lost." He let out a breath in a huff of air. "It's true that I lost none—because I _have_ none. I never even looked at another woman after you left."

 _So I was right after all_ , she mused. _Here it comes… any second now…_

"Yet I realized that I very much want grandchildren. Kanna, your granddaughter… she was the best student I ever trained." _So Katara got the better of you, did she_ , Kanna thought with a smirk she didn't even try to hide. _I knew that if anyone could beat some sense into those stuffy old Northern Tribe waterbending masters, it would be her._ "She… is a good deal like you were at that age. She is definitely your granddaughter… and I would like her to be mine as well." Reaching into his parka, he pulled something out: a carved stone pendant, attached to a blue ribbon.

Her younger self would have frozen in fear, or spat words of defiance—possibly both at once. Now, however, Kanna could finally see the situation for what it was. She took one look at the betrothal necklace, and let out a derisive snort.

"What's so funny?" he demanded, withdrawing the necklace and curling his fingers around it protectively, as if it were a newborn child and she'd just confessed to infanticide.

"You," she said, finally getting her chuckling under control, and with a good deal of success—one didn't take charge of a whole village in the chief's absence without cultivating a reputation for being unflappable. "You really haven't learned anything, have you?" She gave one last, brief chuckle before turning back to the the torn parka she'd been sewing when Pakku had so rudely interrupted her.

"I'm aware that this might be a difficult concept for you to understand—" no, he hadn't changed at all; Pakku never could speak more than two sentences in a row without breaking into sarcasm, "—but I'm serious." Once more, he held out the necklace. "Kanna. What do you say?"

When she'd first left the Northern Water Tribe, her freedom had been a heady drug, a rush of euphoria that she wouldn't have sacrificed for the world even as it had clouded her judgment and made her pull stunts so reckless they would have made Sokka wince. Now, it was the ice beneath her feet, holding her up no matter how grueling life became, and she let it support her as she turned back to Pakku.

"I'm saying no."

* * *

She was far too familiar with Pakku's sense of entitlement to think that he would give up after that single rejection. The only question remaining was not _if_ , it was _when_.

In the meantime, life went on. Visitors or no, there was meat to be preserved, hides to be tanned, clothes to be mended and children to be looked after. The women of the Tribe went on much as they had before, looking after themselves and expecting their "guests" to do the same.

"…and I'm telling _you_ , we need this area for fishing! You're going to have to build your fountains someplace else!"

Kanna turned. That sounded like trouble.

"What would women know about fishing? If we can build somewhere else, then you can fish somewhere else—"

"What would you _Northerners_ know about the currents here?" Qannik was facing off with one of the newcomers, and she looked furious. "What would women know about fishing? Only what we've learned through years of feeding our families by ourselves!"

"What seems to be the trouble here?" Kanna kept her hands folded into her sleeves, and spoke with the quiet authority that she'd learned would earn more respect than all of the blustering and chest-thumping in the world.

"These _men_ ," Qannik spat the word with all the vehemence she'd used to recount the story of the arctic seal that had once burst from the ice after a full day of fishing, and stolen her hard-won catch, "are trying to appropriate our fishing grounds so they can make pretty sculptures." She glared.

"What we're _trying_ to do is bring you some civilization—La, you're living like barbarians down here!" By now the argument had caught the attention of everyone within hearing distance, almost the entire village was looking on, and he swept his arm out to encompass the watching women. "We came here to _help_ , and all you ungrateful _women_ can think about is your precious fish." The young man threw his hands in the air. "Well, I don't have to listen to this anymore! You can either clear out, or—"

"Or what, Nanouk? What's going on here?" Kanna suppressed a groan.

"Master Pakku." Young Nanouk turned to his fellow Northerner, relief standing out on his face now that he had an ally. "They won't get out of the way so we can set up the village square. I've been trying to make them see reason—"

"By which you mean you've been refusing to see reason yourselves!" Qannik interrupted angrily. "If we can't fish, then we don't eat—and all the ice sculptures in the world won't be much use if nobody's around to enjoy them!"

"I see." Pakku inclined his head. "Nanouk. Revise your plans."

Nanouk, who had been smirking at them smugly, sputtered in shock. "M-Master Pakku—!"

Pakku raised an eyebrow. "Did I stammer?"

"No, Master Pakku." The young man slouched into his parka, his body moving into a sulk. "But surely—"

"If you truly want to help people, you should pay attention when they tell you what kind of help they need." He turned away before Nanouk could reply.

* * *

"So _now_ will you—"

"No."

"For La's sake, Kanna, I've changed! Can't you see that I'm not the same man I was before?"

"I can certainly see that you're trying to _convince_ me of that. So tell me: how many times did the two of you rehearse that scene?"

"You're impossible," he grumbled. "To think I would use such an underhanded—"

"Okay, so maybe not," she conceded. "But you still usurped my authority in front of my people to make yourself look better."

"What I _thought_ I was doing was disciplining one of _my_ people who was acting out of line. Or would you rather I let him do whatever he wanted?"

"Do you really think so little of me that you didn't think I could have handled that pup on my own? More to the point," she continued as he opened his mouth, "would you still have intervened if I hadn't been there?"

"Unless I am _severely_ unobservant, you weren't there when I taught your granddaughter." He was nearly pouting with indignation, and Kanna was caught off-guard by how human it made him look.

"You shouldn't make that face. It doesn't suit you." Kanna chuckled. "So how many times did Katara have to hit you with ice before she knocked some sense into your head?"

"A few." To her disappointment, he did not describe the fight. "To be honest, though… it was seeing how successful you'd been at making a life without me that made me start to rethink what I'd been taught."

Kanna said nothing. She listened. When she'd left, she had told no one of her plans, had not stopped to say goodbye even to her closest friends or family for fear that one of them might try to stop her. There was a part of her, though, that had always wondered how badly hurt her parents and Yugoda would be that she'd stolen away in the dead of night—there was even a small part of her that had wondered about Pakku.

"Kanna, when we woke the next morning to find that you were gone, we searched the ocean for days. I gave you up for dead almost as soon as I heard—I did not think that any woman, especially one without waterbending, would make it past the first iceberg, much less to the other side of the world. After the fifth day, we stopped searching. Your parents held a funeral rite without the body—yet here you are, safe and sound, with two grandchildren and a new place you can call home." The chuckle he let out was significantly less sardonic than his usual. "I must say, I'm impressed."

"That was always your problem, Pakku. You never thought of me as anything other than weak and helpless, so of _course_ it seems impressive to you if I do anything other than cling to your arm and look pretty."

"No, would you _listen?_ Even a man—" He caught himself with a visible effort before he started again. "The journey you made would have been impressive even for a seasoned warrior, with bending abilities, to make alone. Most of the young _men_ out there would have turned around and run back to their parents' houses as soon as the ice started melting." He looked briefly away from her, staring at the wall of the tent as his eyes slipped closed, but then let out a breath as he turned back. She'd seen that look before, in the young men who were preparing to take their first stand against a Fire Nation ship: he was gathering his courage. "Kanna… was I really that horrible?"

At his words, she let out a sigh of her own. "Pakku, it wouldn't have mattered if you were the kindest, most considerate man in the Four Nations—which, for the record, you weren't. That wouldn't have made me love you, it wouldn't have changed the fact that I didn't have a choice… and I still would have had no way of knowing how kind you'd be after we were married and you no longer had anyone to impress."

That final reason hadn't been the primary drive for her leaving, but Kanna would be lying to herself if she claimed it hadn't occurred to her. There were men in the Northern Tribe who beat their wives, she knew. She'd had friends who after a mere month of marriage had been reduced to shells of their former selves, unable to leave, unable to turn to family for help. One time, she'd even overheard her father telling her older sister that if she didn't want her husband to hit her, she shouldn't have made him angry in the first place.

 _That this still happens is as much the fault of men like our father_ , she'd thought later, once she'd been away for a few years and had gained the courage to think it, _as much as it is of men like her husband._

"I suppose you've spent this whole time feeling sorry for yourself," she continued when Pakku did not answer. "You had some pretty dream of true love that was shattered when you realized that just because you loved me, that didn't mean I had to love you back."

"Answer me one thing. If you didn't love me, then why did you keep it? And why did you give it to Katara?"

 _She'd been rowing all night, rowing until her arms ached, and only when the first streaks of sunlight touched the horizon did she feel that she was sufficiently out of reach, that it was safe for her to stop and rest. Unclenching her fists from the oars required a physical effort—she'd managed to catch a few good currents on the way out, but those would only take her so far. At long last, however, Kanna was able to lie back, panting, every few minutes raising her shaking arms to rub her aching back as she looked up at the fading stars._

 _She had made it._

 _Her stomach was growling, her eyelids drooped, and every muscle in her body was screaming out in protest, but she had finally made it. They would search, she was sure, but it was a vast ocean and a small canoe, and they had no way of knowing which direction she had gone. Kanna was a free woman, now. Never again would she be any man's possession._

 _Never again would she have to wear her owner's tag…_

 _Without her consciously willing the motion, her hand jerked up to grab the stone at her throat. She yanked it free with a vicious tear, before drawing her arm back to fling it as far as she could into the ocean._

 _She hesitated._

 _The necklace remained enclosed in her clenched fist as she sat there for first one breath, then another, while wave after wave gently rocked her small boat. The stars were all gone now, the sun painting the horizon in a magnificent display of color, but still her arm would not move._

 _Why couldn't she throw it?_

 _Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time sitting there and fighting with herself as the morning brightened and the sun rose ever higher in the sky, Kanna pulled it back. Opening her fingers, she forced herself to truly look at what she held._

 _The stone was the most even shade of pale blue, the delicate carvings made with great care. Unlike the pretty ice sculptures he had waterbent for her, she knew, there was no way Pakku could have made this without a great deal of time and effort. Her father had been satisfied with the bride price, and with the prestige of having his daughter marry the waterbending master's son. To him the betrothal necklace was a mere formality: Pakku could not have expended such effort to please her father._

 _"Here." Kanna had to fight the urge to pull away as his fingers tied the ribbon around her neck. "Our parents are still working out the details, but I thought it wouldn't be too early to give you this." When she said nothing, he elaborated, "I made it for you."_

 _Was_ _she nothing more than a trophy to him? Or did Pakku actually believe he was in love with her? Whatever the case, it was nowhere near enough to persuade her to turn around—Kanna had come too far to go back now, and nothing that Pakku felt for her would change what she felt or didn't feel for him, nor would it remove her need to get away from the Northern Water Tribe's stifling laws and customs. It was, however, enough to make her draw back her hand and place the necklace safely inside of her parka, unharmed._

 _'I'll keep this with me, at least,' she thought as she reached for the blubbered seal jerky she'd stashed in the bottom of the canoe. 'If nothing else, to remind myself of why I left.'_

 _For many years after reaching the Southern Water Tribe, Kanna continued to wear it for just that reason. On the night of Kya's wedding, however, she decided that she'd worn it long enough._

 _"Where did you get this, anyway?" Kya asked, turning the stone in her hand and running her fingers over the blue ribbon with delight—the necklace had always been Kanna's special talisman; not even Kya had ever dreamed that it would someday be hers. "I've never seen anything like it!"_

 _"It's a reminder," Kanna explained as Kya cocked her head in curiosity. "That even after you are married, you belong to no one but yourself."_

Eventually, she'd told the full story to Kya. She hadn't gotten a chance to tell Katara—she'd been planning to wait until her granddaughter was sixteen.

"I kept it," Kanna said now, "to remind myself of what my freedom was worth. I passed it down to others to remind them of the same."

* * *

"Pakku, I want you to tell me something."

They were sitting next to the remains of a dying campfire, watching the night fall after a hard day's work. There wasn't much night left to fall anymore: soon summer would be here, bringing with it the comet that might give the Fire Nation the power to break the world.

"You want me to _tell_ you something." He arched an eyebrow. "That's certainly a first."

"Stop that. I'm serious." To her surprise he did not retort with further sarcasm, only nodded for her to continue. Kanna took a deep breath. "Could you really not see how miserable I was?"

The question seemed to startle him. He looked taken aback for a moment, and Kanna could guess that it had never even occurred to him that she might have run away because she'd been unhappy—like most of the other men in her former tribe, he'd have thought her willful, disobedient, ignorant of her place, but never a person with a mind and heart capable of feeling trapped in the role they'd designated for her without her say. She waited.

"I intended to provide for you," Pakku said at last. "Our marriage would have brought you prestige, wealth. I never would have raised a hand to you—I was not even aware that you had feared it. I truly did love you—which is more than most can ask for, in an arranged marriage. Women, to me, had it easy—because you were the weaker sex, you must rely on us to meet your needs, and asking for anything more would have been nothing but selfishness on your part." He shook his head. "I suppose I did not see why you would have had any reason to be upset—not when once we were married, I would have given you anything you wanted."

"Anything, you say." Absently, she poked at the embers with one of the bones that was all that was left of their evening meal. "And what would you have done if I had asked for my freedom? For the same respect that you consider your due?"

"Yes. Well." Pakku at least had the good grace to look uncomfortable. "Somehow I managed not to see that you were chained."

"I thought as much." With a sigh, she let the bone fall. "Which is exactly why I could not have married you—how could you have made me happy, when you would not have believed me if I told you I was not?"

"And now?"

"Now? Well, I certainly believe that you're _trying_. But you know what they always said in the Northern Water Tribe: it takes more than blind casting to get a fish on your line. Once you Northerners have figured out what every child knows down here, I might reconsider."

* * *

"Master Pakku, sir?"

He looked down, startled. There, at his feet, was the child Yutu, who was staring up at him with unabashed curiosity.

"It's not safe for you up here," he said curtly. "Go back to your mother."

The child did not listen—it was no wonder, he thought, that this tribe produced such strong-willed girls as Katara, when the children were not even taught to respect their elders. "Why are you staring at the ocean?"

Well, he might as well ask. After all, Kanna had all but dared him to do this— _twice_. "There's a woman I want to marry."

"Oh." Yutu sank down on to the ice on the very edge of the glacier, resting his chin in his hands. "Why don't you just ask her?"

"I _have_." _You insolent brat_ , he resisted the urge to add. "I made her a betrothal necklace. I told her that her grandchildren would be my own. I don't see what more she could possibly want from me."

"Hm." Yutu cocked his head, and Pakku could tell that he was already getting bored with the topic. "Did you ask really, _really_ nicely?"

* * *

"Kanna!"

Kanna turned, startled, from where she was helping some of the other women flay an arctic seal—after learning that they could, in fact, _not_ do better, some of the Northern boys were sullenly accepting instruction from Qannik. She saw Pakku running up to them, panting, for once not showing off by riding a wave of ice.

"If you say no this time, I swear on the sacred pool of Tui and La I will respect your decision and never ask again. But I have to try one last time." He went down on one knee. "Kanna. You are the only woman I've ever loved. I want your grandchildren to be my own. If we marry, I will respect you as my equal, and your every decision will carry the same weight as mine, because there's nothing I want more than to make you happy." He held out a hand; the new betrothal necklace lay in his open palm. "So please. Will you marry me?"

As he spoke, Kanna allowed a small smile to creep onto her face, before gently shaking her head—though not in refusal of his request.

" _Finally._ "

* * *

 **A/N:** This was somewhat out of my comfort zone, but nevertheless really fun to write. I hope that it is to your satisfaction.


End file.
